Grace is here!

My little sister, Katie, had her baby this weekend!

Grace Kathleen made her arrival at 6:33 AM on June 28, 2008 at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis.

She weighed 6 lbs 3 oz and is 18.5 inches long.

She was born only 40 minutes after Mommy and Daddy arrived at the hospital! She was in a hurry to enter this world. Gracie was a month early, but needed no special treatment. Mommy, Daddy, and baby are all healthy and happy

Typical Hubs fare - Today's IM convo

Me: hey pal
Me: what did you do for lunch?

Hubs: hey there
Hubs: got some pizza hut, beat some guy up
Hubs: the usual
Hubs: you?

Me: you beat some guy up?!? What?!?

Hubs: not really. just ripped his shirt. :-)

Me: what happened?

Hubs: i was walking back from the train station and saw some guy wrestling with a female bike messenger
Hubs: he was yelling that she had hit his car or something
Hubs: and trying to drag her off the bike
Hubs: so i put a stop to it
Hubs: just grabbed him by the collar and pushed him away
Hubs: and his shirt ripped a bunch
Hubs: some other guys jumped in and the girl got away, so i just kept walking
Hubs: didn't even spill my soda
Hubs: :-)

Eat, Pray, Vomit

apologies if you have read this book (I haven't!) and liked it, but this review just cracked me up!!

http://bookishbent.blogspot.com/2008/06/eat-pray-love.html

Random blasts from the past

So my parents have purchased a new (and smaller house) in Evansville, prompting my Mom to start unloading all my childhood crap on me box by box. The last time I was home, she plopped a plastic tote in front of me with a bunch of stuff from college. Most of it was CRAP, so most of it got thrown away. But some I kept. This weekend at the family reunion, she loaded up the plastic tote again, this time with all sorts of crap from childhood and high school.

The tote included about a million notes written to various high school boyfriends. I only read the few that weren't bundled into little squares, reading a few Q&A notes that my friend Robie and I would write back and forth. One of us would write a page of questions and give it to the other, and then the other would answer all the questions and write another page of questions for the first to answer. Robie, for some reason, liked to streak/moon people and used to ask what people would do if he was naked right then. In one of the notes, he had asked what I would do if he was naked right then in class. My one word response was "Laugh". I cracked up over that. Man, I was mean even back in the day.

Lately, with all this going through old stuff, I've been throwing out alot and taking pics of crap that I want to save, but don't want to bother with trying to find a place for in our city condo. I mean, if we had the room I'd probably keep it all somewhere and then hate myself later in life for not throwing it away sooner. But I like the picture-taking idea.... I have the pic to remember the item by, and don't have to store/dust/move all that crap anywhere. Better remember to backup though!

Here are just a few things I took pics of.... starting off with one of the least embarrassing, a caricature made by an artist at a PwC Mardi Gras party they threw on campus as a recruiting event when I was in college.

This is a button I had in elementary school. We lived in Moores Hill until the third grade, so I sported this around ages 5-8 or so. I mean, who didn't love Alf? And love to proclaim their love for their small town/school via Alf?

Yeah, I was in speech contests when I was younger. I was a very outspoken child, a shyer adolescent, and back to a loud and outspoken adult. Hey, at least I was keeping it real, getting my certificate-gettin' on.

Hmmm, now we get even more embarrassing than speech contests. These are all my band awards for the state and local solo and ensemble contests. EVEN BETTER: I had engraved with my friends engraving tool the name of the song I played and the year of each award. Oy. I played the flute and the piccolo. Truth be told, I played the piccolo mostly b.c it annoyed people AND was small enough to fit in my backpack and carry without much effort. And I was AWFUL at it. You wouldn't know by looking at these medals that I was so bad, but my AIM LOW strategy was in effect even back then: the songs I picked to play were all very simple. I had a good sound, but the fingers wouldn't move nearly as fast as they should have for most band stuff. By the end of high school I had mastered moving my fingers and holding my instrument to LOOK like I was playing but not actually emitting any noise. I was that awesome. OK, enough band.

My friend Jill was picked to go to Hoosier Girls State, and I was the alternate. I was bummed I wasn't picked, and then years later Jill told me the whole thing sucked and she was bummed she wasn't the alternate. I had gotten in the paper but hadn't had to endure the actual conference-y thing.

My Dad started me off right: busting on Purdue from childhood. Awesome.

My Mom always wondered how I kept my siblings out of my room when I was a kid. Simple, post the rules. I am still surprised they followed them. Although back then I was bigger than them and could whup their butts.

Just when I thought it couldn't get more embarrassing than band awards.... this is my sophomore year Prom Date Clifton and I. 1) Holy bangs and plastic flowers batman. 2) Dude, at that school it was a REALLY big deal to go to the prom as a freshman or sophomore. It basically it meant you were thebomb.com. So yeah, I used Clifton to go to the prom. I would say I'm sorry to Clifton, whereever he is.... but dude, he had a smokin' date. So yeah, he didn't fare too badly. Except for that I totally didn't hang out with him at the prom and ditched him to dance with the dude I had a crush on who worked at the local IGA. awesome.

One of the better items that I actually did keep... me and Hirsch (Helfrich!) cheesing in a photo booth.

AND FINALLY, the best one... my ONLY sports award ever. I believe this is a t-ball participant award from 1988.... hahahahahah Isn't tball for like toddlers and not 8 year olds???

Stratton Fam Reunion

Just got back from a weekend of Stratton Family reunioning! Here are some pics from the weekend.

Little Jaxon, my cousin Brian's son

Jaxon and Aunt Gayle

Jayden (my cousin Stephanie's son) holds onto Jay's large noggin' for dear life

Little Jayce (Stephanie's younger son) zonks out

Jaxon and Daddy

I love this picture of Brian and Jaxon, but Jaxon is out of focus! He looks like such a Gerber baby though.

Oh, Cousin Zach, you are truly one of a kind ;c)

The whole reunioning group (except for those who left the night before)

And a funny one to end the group of pics... Grandma giving me not one but TWO stinkeyes. Her expression in this one just cracks me up. Grandma is the best, so loving, but a tough cookie!

is she taking a picture? hmmmmmm

Herman says....

Happy Memorial Day weekend!!

Photography class musings

So I am taking a photography class, and the lab teachers were remarking about how everyone hated that week’s assignment:

Take a roll (40-45 pictures) of three people interacting. They shouldn’t be looking at you, if the people in the picture are looking at you, it should be two people in the picture (that would be the two people + you = three interacting). The kicker is that the people couldn’t be friends or family and couldn’t be strangers.

Awesome.

It ended up being the best possible week for me to do this assignment, as my sister’s baby shower was this past Saturday. Plenty of people that I knew a little bit through her, and via the church, but that aren’t people that I “would have over to dinner at my house” which was the test of whether the person was a friend or family member.

I would suppose that most people don’t like this assignment because it makes them uncomfortable to take the pictures – which is the point that the teacher is trying to get across to people: that you are only as uncomfortable as you make yourself in these situations. If you simply act as if you belong there/should be taking photos, then most people do not question you.

For me, the answer is a bit different. I mean, I felt like a bit of a creeper taking pics of people I hardly know, but mostly because I had to frame up the shots SO MUCH because usually I was taking a pic of only three people in a much larger group, so I had to frame the other people out of the shot, wait until someone moved their hand out of the way and then snap my pics. But mostly I am mostly comfortable with taking shots regardless of the situation.

The teacher asked if I liked the assignment. I said no, he asked why and I replied "I don't mean to be a snob, but I really don't care to have pictures of random strangers. Why do I care about people who I am not friends or family of? I will just confuse myself at the Old Folks Home 50 years from now, trying to remember all these random people that I never knew in the first place!"

Seriously? For me, the best shots are those that bring out the beautiful things in the people I know and love. Without that, they’re just random shots that don’t hold as much emotion or fun for me.

I feel like I have a hojillion things to write about...

... but suddenly got very busy with no time to write. Here's what has gone on:
-Went to London
-Started photography class (twice a week, Monday & Tuesday)
-Went to Evansville for Katie's graduation and baby shower
-Started mildly working out again (holy fatness batman!)

I have to write up an entry about London because it was AWESOME. And about Katie's weekend because she is awesome! ;c)

The joys of living with a boy

Me: How do you sit in your man chair after you come home from the gym all sweaty?

Mike: Oh, yeah. I'm disgusting. I shouldn't do that (Gets up, sits on coffee table)

Me: I'm thinking the butt-sweat situation might be worse over there. I mean, I'm just guessing.

Mike: I'll go get the cleaning spray.

Me: Good call

An open letter to bike thieves

Dear person who stole our awesome Trek bikes,

Please come up to unit 204. My husband has prepared a fist sandwich to thank you for your kindness.

Thanks,
April

Quite possibly the most absurd article of all time....

I kinda needed this today..

From The Superhero Journal

You are exactly where you need to be.

You are not missing out, falling behind, doing it wrong,not trying hard enough.
You are doing more than enough.

Whatever opinions you have about it,however imperfect
This is yours.

Where you are right now.
Sitting here surfing the internet even.
Is perfect.

Back home and it feels so good

Well, I'm back from Australia, with all kinds of stories to tell!

OK maybe not that many stories to tell, but better than normal weekdays. The flights to Sydney were super-smooth: we weren't delayed at all, and we made it through Customs and our 6 hour layover in Vancouver no biggie. We met all kinds of fun people in the Vancouver airport and I had TONS of fun asking people what they thought of Americans and the US in general. The consensus: that we're a little misguided and in deep, but that they have faith that we'll find our footing again. I thought that was pretty interesting.

We left Vancouver at midnight on Saturday night and arrived after a 16 hour flight at 9:30 AM on Monday morning. I only slept for about 4 hours total, so I was feeling like major death warmed over on Monday. However, we had all kinds of stuff to do and needed to stay awake until at least 9 or so to adjust my body to the time change, so we headed to the Sydney harbor for lunch and a zoo outing.

The Sydney Opera House

The Taronga zoo is across the Sydney harbor from downtown, so we took a ferry over there. The zoo is located on a hillside, so we took an air gondola up the hillside to the top of the zoo. Then we walked down the hill, working our way through the zoo. It was so great, seeing all kinds of crazy animals! Mike teased me, saying that they probably had animals that they thought were crazy, like North American bears and cows and such, but they did have a whole area called "Wild Australia" that we spent most of our time in. There was even a kangaroo walkabout where you could walk around and feed kangaroos and such. So cool!! Except for the kangaroo that jumped right at me. It was just a baby little guy, but I still screamed bloody murder like a little girl and got the heck of its way!

I just loved the Koalas. They were so cute that I wanted to cuddle them. I've heard they can be kind of vicious, but whatevs!

Giraffes, with Sydney in the background

That night we headed to the Opera House bar to have a few cocktails, then hit up dinner in an area called "the Rocks". Our ferry tour guide told us that there are a lot of weddings in that area, because you can take pics there on the harbor with Sydney in the background. He also said that Australians joke, "Look, another marriage on the rocks!" haha.... the area was super cute with all kinds of nice restaurants and shops and such. After dinner we were pooped, so we headed home to the hotel to cash out for the night.

The next night we headed down to Darling Harbor (a pretty happening area right near our hotel) for some dinner and fun. We landed at a restaurant called Kobe Jones for sushi. The sushi was super-good, and my one co-worker ordered the "dynamite roll." You could customize the spiciness level by telling the waiter 1-5, and we settled on 3 since we liked spicy but not too spicy. The stuff was so spicy, it got all of our noses running and was like a little explosion in your mouth. I got two chews into my one piece of the roll and then it suddenly felt like some liquidy spiciness exploded in my mouth. I almost spit it out, it was so surprising. After that, we ended up at a swanky bowling alley that played mostly old-school Christina Aguilera and Beyonce. There, my boss almost broke a 200 game before the Christina Aguilera video "Dirrrrty" started up on the video monitors right above the bowling lanes.

The bowling shoes reminded me of Marty McFly from "Back to the Future" Wednesday night, we all headed out to a team dinner at the restraurant Wildfire. It was not a part of the Wildfire chain here in North America, but it was a seafood and steakhouse.

Thursday night the guys headed out to see smashing pumpkins and my coworker and myself hit up an italian dinner in Bondi Beach
Friday was the happy hour that never ended.... well, you can see how that went:

The boss and I throw down IT gang signs

Let's just say it was fun.... I liked Australia!

Pulled pork recipe

Tonight I made pulled pork and it was soooooooooooooooo good....

3 pounds boneless pork shoulder roast, well-trimmed or boneless pork loin roast
1 package McCormick® Slow Cookers BBQ Pulled Pork Seasoning
1/2 cup ketchup
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/3 cup cider vinegar

I switched some things up - I used 1.00 pounds of pork roast pieces (not a whole roast) and first browned them in the dutch oven (in about a tablespoon of olive oil). Then I put all the ingredients in the dutch oven and added a half cup of water (in addition) and put it on low heat to simmer for about 2 hours. It was sooooo tender and yummy. I put a couple spoonfuls over a piece of wheat bread, and made a side of coleslaw from the coleslaw cabbage mix and just a teeny bit of low-fat mayo. ;c) It was super good!!!

Plane - off the runway

Plane - off the runway, originally uploaded by agstratt.

Check this out... pilot tried to go down the "small plane path" instead of the "large plane path" to get to the terminal. Realized a little too late that this 777 didn't have the turn radius that he thought it did!

P.S.

Oh, and I colored my hair (and by "I" I mean my stylist AnnaMarie). Just a bit darker, but I love it!

Update

It's been a VERY busy few weeks... here are some photo highlights!

Jay moved to Chicago.... this is us at Jack's for the IU vs. Purdue basketball game

We hit up Prost! for Mike and his pals' b-days. This is a pic of another night at Prost, and a Das boot of Schlitz... ew....
We were walking across the street to go to the train this week and saw this semi. We're not sure how it collapsed in half but it looks pretty cool!!

I hit up Adobo Grill and 2nd City Comedy club with Emily and her coworkers this week, and got off the El at the new Sedgewick station. They have installed this beautiful mural/mosaic in the new station.

Just walking down North Avenue to Adobo....

Cheaptickets.com

Check out this article I wrote on Cheaptickets.com about my Little sib, Gracie!

http://www.cheaptickets.com/App/PerformMDLPDealsContent?deal_id=volunteer

Good eats

Tonight's domestic accomplishment - Homemade pizza!

My side: asparagus and goat cheese
The boy's side: Pepperoni

both sides.... YUM!

Recipe

I would say that I would like to do a recipe-of-the-week type entry, but I have been a bit sparse about the updating.

So here's a recipe that I tried tonight and Mike and I both liked:

Kettle Goulash from Cooking Light
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 pounds lean, boned bottom round roast, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 cups diced plum tomato
1 1/2 cups vertically sliced red onion
1 cup diced green bell pepper
1 garlic clove, minced
2 cups cubed peeled red potato
1/3 cup dry red wine
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 (14 1/4-ounce) can fat-free beef broth
Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add beef, browning on all sides. Remove from
pan. Add tomato, onion, bell pepper, and garlic; sauté 10 minutes.
Return beef to pan; stir in potato and remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat,
and simmer 1 1/2 hours or until beef is tender.

I also sprinkled like three tablespoons of flour in at the end to thicken it up and make it more like a gravy than a broth.

As an aside, Cooking Light is one of my favorite websites..... I get the magazine, but find the website to be much more fun... I am just not the type to read a magazine and think "Oooh! I will make this next week!" and then follow through with it. The problem is that I usually buy whatever meat is on sale and then put that cut into the search engine in Cooking Light or BettyCrocker.com to try and figure out a tasty way to cook it. I like that Cooking Light publishes the nutrionals per serving as well.